Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Friday, July 12, 2013

Paul Tillich's "God Above God" and the "Restlessness of the Human Heart"


 
 Apparently Tillich is imminently quotable... and worth the read. This week's High Gravity group explored Paul Tillich's "God above God" in the face of radical doubt and a religionless Christianity: "The God who is absent is present as the source of restlessness." Here's another: "The separation of the holy from the secular is a symptom of man's estrangement from himself." Thinking through these quotes you quickly understand my intrigue. Here are some more quotes that I've more-or-less have culled from readings and restated in mine own fashion:
 
- Like any man, atheism tries to transcend the religious images of God by removing the crimes and misery religion has caused mankind. Seeking critical honesty in the face of religious traditions. But once indoctrinated, a religious man cannot break from his symbolic past, finding it hard to see the God he would love.
 
Ideally, Christian theology is able to show in its own symbolism the truth about the God above God. If not, we are left with beggarly images of the God we think we know.
 
The presence of spiritual restlessness, ache, doubt, all is due to God's presence in this life.
 
- God is the God of all - to both the secular man as to the religious man, each lost in their own turns.
 
Impossibly, we cannot resist to image God. Images which confuse His Being and Meaning whenever we do. The paradox of God is that this God is above all we would think and worship. For God is not an object. His being transcends the world of objects as well as every subject. And so must our images of God likewise be transcended lest we fail in our sight of our Creator-Redeemer.
 
You can see my intrigue by the statements above. And by saying less in today's post I hope to say more by allowing you, the reader, to think on these things. At-the-last, I leave with you an example of a fellow Christian caught-in-the-turns of a symbolic, relational Christianity that both fails and heals as best as it can in this brief life of ours.
 
Overall, my encourage is in knowing that our God is ever present in our lives. That He Himself is restless in joining our lives with His own. That goodness and light, life and love, should never be dimmed in the presence of evil we see everywhere abounding. Evil that rejects God, harms others, and states "Thus I have done, let it not be undone" in shouts against the divine will so patient, so open, so restless to bring judgment and justice to our world of woe.
 
R.E. Slater
July 12, 2013
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
by Michael Hildago
Issue 64: July/August 2013, Relevant Magazine
 
 
Several years ago, I left the Church.
 
My wife and I were deeply wounded by our closest friends and partners in ministry, rumors about us spread like wildfire and we felt abandoned. I said goodbye to God and the Church and, it was safe to say, I was never coming back. I thought the Church was a broken institution.
 
A year before that, I was a pastor. My congregation was filled with people who loved Jesus and had a passion to see His renewal come to this broken world. I never tired of hearing stories of brokenness followed by experiences of healing. Our belief was simple: the Church should be the last place you should find people who pretend to have it all together. I was having the church experience many people are blessed to have in their lives: one that was vibrant and exciting.
 
I didn’t know that not everyone agreed with my mind-set, and a few did all they could to ensure I would not be a pastor at that church for long. One morning, I was told I had to resign. As I looked around the room, I saw people who were more than friends—they were family. One of those in that meeting used to tell me I was “like a son” to him. But now, as one leader told me, I was simply “an issue that needed to be dealt with.”
 
There was no warning and no conversation; just a severance agreement I had to sign or else I’d get nothing. So I did. What followed was one of the most painful seasons of my life.
 
I walked out of that church, and no one from its leadership team ever reached out to my family again. Apparently their “issue” had been dealt with. But it wasn’t over for me. Our community, my career and our future with the church were all suddenly severed, and my wife and I were devastated. We’d had such a strong sense of spiritual purpose, and now we had no idea what to do with our lives. For years, I had met people who had been “hurt by the Church.” Now, I was one of them.
 
We are everywhere
 
The saddest part in all of this is my story is not unique. Many of us have had painful experiences with the Church, Christian ministries, organizations or universities.
 
My friend Rick worked at a Christian university for more than 15 years. He quickly became one of the most beloved and popular professors at the school. For many students, he served in a pastoral role, offering godly guidance. Rick challenged the comfortable Christianity of many students and invited them to truly make faith in Jesus their own.
 
Yet as his popularity with students grew, the concern of the trustees regarding Rick grew, as well. They believed his teaching went against the doctrinal statement of the college and even raised questions about his political viewpoints. After Rick had spent years giving everything to that university and caring for students, the trustees fired him without ever seeking to clarify what he believed or taught.
 
The people in the Church are broken, but we serve a Christ who is making all things whole.
 
Students protested, alumni wrote letters on his behalf, many called and emailed, asking the trustees to rethink their decision, but nothing worked. Rick was out, without so much as a “thank you” from the trustees of the university where he invested in the lives of so many. He told me he felt like “his heart was ripped out his chest.”

My friend Julie went through an experience where she felt totally rejected by Christian leaders. Her husband, Dan, was an alcoholic. As much as she begged him to get help, he never did. He believed he couldn’t talk about it because he worked for a Christian ministry. He knew if he told anyone of his addiction, he would be immediately fired.
 
After years of pleading with him to no avail, Julie found out Dan had been diagnosed with an inoperable tumor. Within months, his health deteriorated and he passed away. Julie finally opened up about Dan’s addiction to those in the organization where he worked. She was shocked at their response: They wanted nothing to do with her.
 
In her greatest time of need, those she had considered friends ignored her and gossiped about her and Dan. She had spent years suffering in her marriage, and now, after her husband died, she suffered more. The people she believed she could trust rejected her—all this from those who worked for a Christian organization.
 
These are not just stories. These are people like you and me. And we are everywhere—all of us wounded, not by the Church or a ministry, but by others who identify as Christians.
 
It’s Not the church that hurts you
 
Recently, a young man named Ryan told me how much he “hated the Church” because of how “the Church hurt his parents.” I met a woman named Melissa after one of our Sunday morning services. It was her first time in a church in more than six years. She said, “I was so hurt by the ministry I worked for.”
 
Speaking this way allows “the Church,” a ministry or a university to remain a faceless, impersonal organization. But a faceless, impersonal organization can’t hurt us the way friends and family can. The Church did not wound me, Rick was not fired by his university and Julie was not rejected by an organization.
 
The reality is, it’s not the Church that has hurt us. It is the people we loved and trusted, whom we associate with “the Church” to make it less personal, less painful. And yet that’s why it hurts so much—you can’t get hurt by someone you don’t love.
 
If I had been conspired against by someone I did not know, I could have dealt with it. It would not have been personal. But I believed these people to be my closest friends—people I had worked alongside, people with whom I had shared life.
 
Those we love the most give us our deepest wounds. And when those who wound us are connected with the Church or a ministry, it’s easy to depersonalize the injury by attributing it to the entire institution.
 
The longer we hold on to those feelings of hatred and the more we speak of being hurt only by an organization, the less chance we have of actually addressing our wounds. The best thing we can do is speak honestly about what happened—which can be the hardest part of healing.
 
It’s not easy to speak of our pain and the names of those who caused it. At times, it can feel like we are reliving the entire experience. However, if we are to find healing and return to wholeness, this is exactly what we must do. Healing and forgiveness will find it’s way into the cracks in our heart where truth is present and spoken.
 
This kind of honesty is truly terrifying. When we share our pain and open up our wounds with the truth, we take the chance of being hurt again. For, in those moments, we place our trust in another. Therein lies the risk. But in the risk lies the chance for healing; and not just healing for us, but healing for others, too.
 
Becoming the Hands and Feet
 
Years ago when Julie’s friends rejected her, she spoke of her wounds and those who caused them. Now, by the grace and goodness of God, she is able to speak of her wounds and the God who has healed them. It’s the same for Rick and for me, too.
 
It’s not because we are anything special. Rather, it’s because we met others who had been wounded, and they helped us find healing. They were the ones who came alongside us and helped every step of the way. One might say they were like Jesus for us in our time of need.
 
When God saw the suffering and pain in our world, He sent His Son headlong into it to suffer with us. God could have done anything He wanted in response to the mess humanity got itself into. He could have snapped His fingers and made everything better or, with a wave of His hand, banished all evil from the world, allowing only good to flourish.
 
But He didn’t do any of that.
 
God’s decision was to share in our wounds, take up our pain and bear our sorrow. It’s in the suffering of Jesus that we find our hope. The God who suffered on the cross for us is the same God who suffers with us today. Because of this, we have the opportunity to be like God for those who are wounded.
If you’ve been wounded, betrayed, stabbed in the back or victimized, in that very moment, you look more like Jesus than you did before.
 
This is what Paul was getting at when he called the Church the “body of Christ.” We are the embodiment of God in this world. There are some who describe being the body of Christ by saying “we are his hands and feet.” I can think of no better description—especially when we are hurt ourselves.
Jesus’ hands and feet bear the marks of crucifixion—which means if you’ve been wounded, betrayed, stabbed in the back or victimized, in that very moment, you look more like Jesus than you did before. Our scars allow us to be more like Jesus to others and lead them toward healing.
 
The Church is not a bunch of people who have it all together. It’s a bunch of broken and bruised people who know about getting hurt and causing hurt themselves. But it’s also people who know about healing. And while we should never diminish the seriousness of our pain, it’s in our pain that we encounter the suffering servant who died for us. It’s in our pain and our healing from that pain that others can find hope.
 
Perhaps this is why Rick Warren tweeted recently, “I only hire staff who’ve been hurt deeply. People who’ve never suffered tend to be shallow and smug about other’s pain.” Our pain is the very thing that allows us to share in the pain of others and their journeys to healing. Because when you have scars and someone shares their wounds with you, it makes you weep.
 
When others shared in my pain, they didn’t always have amazing wisdom or brilliant insight. They didn’t quote the perfect verse at the perfect moment. Many times, they struggled to find the right words for encouragement. But they bore scars that spoke of their pain and, most importantly, of God’s grace and goodness that healed them. And I learned that was often the only thing I needed.
 
Finding Healing in the Brokenness
 
Years after swearing I would never return to the Church, I have not just returned—I am a pastor. And, as a pastor, I can say that the people in the Church are certainly broken, but we serve a Christ who is making all things whole. And because He is making all things whole, the institution of the Church is alive and well. Surely only our God could orchestrate such a paradox—a broken people being sustained and built and re-created into something whole.
 
Because the building of the Church is Christ’s alone, we know His work is not broken. This is what we affirm and celebrate every time we participate in communion. We remember that the Church was birthed in the broken body and spilled blood of Jesus. He was broken for broken people. This is the mystery of the Eucharist: Our wholeness is found in Christ’s brokenness. God knew the Church would live in this tension, this paradox, and yet be a place where He is still King.
 
And so, Jesus took the bread and the wine and said, “This is my body broken for you and my blood shed for you.” And when we eat the bread and drink the wine, we not only remember His death, but we also participate in being broken open and poured out for our broken world.